A History of Philosophy, Volume I: Greece and Rome

The first volume of the multi-volume history of Western philosophy by Frederick Copleston, an English Jesuit who taught at Heythrop College, originally written with students for the priesthood in mind. It covers Greek and Roman philosophy from its beginnings in Ionia to the end of the ancient world. The opening part treats the Pre-Socratics: Thales and the Milesians, the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Zeno, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the atomists. Copleston then discusses the Sophists and Socrates, gives long chapters to Plato's theory of knowledge, the Forms, psychology, ethics and politics, and treats Aristotle's logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, ethics and politics in similar detail. The final part follows the Hellenistic and Roman schools: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics and eclectics, and Neoplatonism from Plotinus onwards. The method is careful exposition followed by measured criticism, written from a broadly Thomist outlook but fair to thinkers who do not share it.

It is still one of the fullest and most reliable single-volume accounts of ancient philosophy, valued for patient, balanced exposition that lets readers check what each thinker actually held.